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	Cardinal Will Give Deposition in Sex Abuse Case By John Christoffersen Associated Press, carried in Newsday [Stamford CT] January 11, 2005 STAMFORD, Conn. -- New York Cardinal Edward Egan will testify later this month in the civil trial of a Roman Catholic priest accused of molesting an altar boy, a church spokesman said Tuesday. Egan will give a deposition on Jan. 27, said Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York. The deposition will take place at a law office in Manhattan. Stamford Superior Court Judge Chase Rogers last month asked New York officials to enforce a subpoena ordering Egan to testify. Attorney Paul Slager, who represents the alleged victim, said in court documents that he had repeatedly asked the Archdiocese of New York to make Egan available for a deposition. Slager's client claims he was molested in the early 1990s by the Rev. John Castaldo while Castaldo was a priest at St. Teresa Church in Trumbull. At the time, Egan oversaw the Bridgeport diocese. "During the cardinal's years in the Bridgeport diocese, there was never any indication of any sort of sexual misbehavior on the part of the priest in question," Zwilling said last month. Egan was head of the Diocese of Bridgeport in 1992, when Castaldo was transferred from St. Teresa to St. Mark's in Stratford. According to the lawsuit, Castaldo molested the former altar boy, known as John Doe in court documents, beginning when Doe was 13 years old and attending St. Teresa in Trumbull. Castaldo was a spiritual adviser to Trinity Catholic High School in Stamford and a priest at St. Maurice Parish in Stamford in the late 1990s. He was removed from both posts in May 2001 after he was arrested on charges of engaging in a sexually explicit online chat with someone he believed was a 14-year-old boy. Castaldo pleaded guilty in September 2001 to a felony charge of attempted dissemination of indecent material to a minor and was sentenced to one weekend in jail and five years of probation. Jury selection is starting this week in the civil trial. The evidence portion is scheduled to begin Feb. 1. Castaldo filed a motion objecting to allowing his felony conviction to be admitted as evidence, saying it would be prejudicial. But attorneys for the former altar boy say the conviction should be admitted to challenge his credibility and to show he had a common plan or scheme to engage in sexual relations with underage boys.
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